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Yes, There Is A Better Way To Rename Files In The Mac’s Finder

How do you rename files and folders on your Mac? It’s something we learned to do early on with the Mac, so it’s really easy, right?

Yes. Select a file or folder in the Finder. Press the Enter (Return) key. Type in the new name. Done. What could be easier? Alright, what if you need to rename a dozen files or folders? Or, a hundred? Or, a thousand?

Suddenly the tried and true method of renaming files and folders in the Finder looks more like tedium personified. What’s the solution?

Yep. That’s the somewhat convoluted name of the Mac app that has been on my Mac since shortly after the internet and world wide web and interwebs went public. AFBRX, for short.

Basically, ABFRX renames files and folders. By the dozens, by the hundreds, by the thousands. It’s built-in to the Finder’s context menu for Mac power users, but the standalone app makes it easier to learn and use for the rest of us.

Every component of a file name can be changed en masse. Prefix, suffix, numbers, extensions.

Not only does ABFRX change files names to match whatever criteria you may have, you can view changes before they become permanent in the Preview mode. ABFRX uses 15 categories which cover character, position, text, conversion, truncation and more– all in a step-by-step visual walkthrough interface that makes file renaming intuitive.

Produce a sequential number list of file names, add or change a prefix or suffix, and not only process file names, but folders and sub-folders and files within folders.

And that’s just the file renaming functions.

ABFRX also extracts EXIF data from all major graphic file formats, including RAW, JPEG, CRW, CR2, THM, NEF, TIFF, RAJ, ORF , MRW, DNG, PEF, SRF, and more. In fact, ABFRX is so smart it can pull camera, lens, photo, and color metadata tags and use that information to create new file names.

Got music instead of photos? ABFRX can exploit id3 metadata tags in music files to recreate file names. The key to using ABFRX to rename files is the simple step-by-step onscreen options with the built-in preview; which means you’ll be renaming files by the hundreds within minutes.

If there’s a better file renamer for the Mac I don’t know what it is. Cheaper? Maybe. Better? No.